Significance
by odalys-ortiz
Summary: My take on why Ellie wears the Unitoligist bracelet on her arm. Isaac/Ellie One-Shot Enjoy


Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters. They are the sole property of EA and Visceral Games. Enjoy^^

Significance

"Where did you get this Ellie?" Isaac demanded as he gripped her right arm firmly. "Isaac, stop it." He wasn't hurting her, but Ellie was a bit frightened. Isaac had never acted like this towards her before. His hand was hanging over a bracelet that had managed to slip into view from underneath the sweater she was wearing. That's what this entire altercation came down too. "Are you one of them too? Did you lie to me this whole time?" She shook her head, utterly baffled as to what he was talking about. Ellie, this…" he brought the bracelet into view "is a Unitologist bracelet. Why were you hiding this from me?"

"I wasn't hiding it from you!" She finally managed to get her hand out of his grip. "So why do you have it?" He had managed to cool down somewhat, but was still being watchful on what his next move should be with her. Had she been playing him for a fool this whole time? The possibilities fluttered through his mind as quickly as the drops falling from the sky on Earth. How he could have trusted her? Suddenly, his mind collected itself and thought rationally. Then it dawned on him. There must be another reason to all this because if she had been against him, why hadn't he been captured yet. "It's…because I got it from a kid who die on my team."

The air became so quiet that a pin could be heard hitting the floor. Isaac was dumbfounded to say the least and couldn't help but sit down to think about what she said. Ellie did the same, unsure of how to go on. When she thought back to what had happened, the tough emotional shell that she made for herself began to break down and she couldn't help but feel the moisture from tears fill her eyes. "It had been before I meet you in the shopping area. A few hours ago, I and a few other people were going through the corridors of the Sprawl to try to make it to the transport hub. We wanted to find a way out of that hellhole. A member of my team had been helping with some shortcuts to get around. Only a few rooms from the hub, we ran into some 'thing' that was just sitting on the wall. We hid around the corner to figure out our next move. After a few minutes of nothing, that guy got a bit too impatient and decided to take it on. He had a full capacity Ripper in his hand. The stupid son of a bitch ran out of the corner before I could stop him and started his weapon up. Before he knew what had happened, his head was rolling towards me and stopped at my feet. Poor bastard never had a chance. He probably didn't feel a thing. It took everything in me not to freak out for the sake of my group. I was leading them and I had to keep a clear head. I didn't make the same mistake and used my Plasma Cutter to kill whatever this thing was tentacle by tentacle. It was so surreal though because whenever I shot this thing, I thought that I could hear crying."

Isaac recalled the many run-ins with the necromorph that she was describing. He could feel the chills crawling up and down his body as he thought of the possibilities for the noises. "It kept spitting out these pods and I had to have my team watch my back while I took care of the tentacles on the bigger one. After unloaded a full four clips into it, the noises died down. The room soon got quiet again, as if nothing had actually happened. Everyone took off for the door while I stayed behind to look at it. I don't know why I did that. I should have left with everyone. Something among the flesh ridden mass didn't look right at all to me. I saw this…" she raised the silver bracelet into the light.

"It was wrapped around something that could have been an arm. I don't know, I couldn't really tell." Ellie and Isaac made eye contact with each other and the animosity that he had towards her at the beginning of all this was clearly gone. "Remember when I told you that I had a lot of Unitologist in my crew?" He nodded his head. "Well the kid that got killed was one of them and he had the same bracelet on his wrist. This was from his body. He told me that the symbols that surrounded it means…"

"Life" Isaac interrupted. Ellie was caught off guard with his knowledge of this despite his hate for the group. "My mother was always wearing that thing and she couldn't go one day without telling me what it meant." She nodded her head in understanding. "The beliefs that this kid held were that he would be reborn because of the Marker. Basically he would have probably turned into that abomination that I killed or something worse. I just didn't want that to be the poor kid's life. It just seemed like such a waste. I took it because I thought, maybe in some way, that I could give him a better purpose in life then what the church told him."

"You mean trying to stay alive then fall for the fake Unitologist talk and just let yourself die?"

"Yup because otherwise his death the help everyone get to the hub would have been in vain."

"Did it work?"

"Sort of, I did a lot more fighting after that run in and more people in my crew died. The last one was a good friend of mine, Kaleb. In the end, I found myself in the shopping mall and managed to hack the door code to put the gate between me and the necromorphs. I was alone and didn't know what else to do." She reached around and unhooked the bracelet from her arm. When she removed it from her skin, Isaac could see the impressions that were made on her flesh. She just held it in her hand and looked at it.

"I thought it was the end for me and then something happened that gave me a new purpose unexpectedly."

"What was that?" She then turned her attention towards him and smile. "It was meeting you Isaac." He couldn't help but chuckle. "If by meeting, you mean shooting at me with that Plasma Cutter of yours."

"Hey, I wanted to be careful. I still don't even know why I trusted you, but you helped me out a lot back there. The strange thing is that I felt like I wanted to stay alive to help you in any way I can. The kid never did explain the specifics of the meaning, but I can think that life is more important no matter what anyone else says." Isaac couldn't help but feel so foolish for jumping the gun earlier. "Ellie, look I'm sorry about earlier. I shouldn't have said those things about you and got crazy."

"I had gotten this earlier so I didn't even think about how you would react to it. Besides Isaac, don't worry about it. You aren't the kind of guy to get all apologetic. I knew you would understand once I told you." With that, Ellie got up and headed towards her room. With another look at the bracelet, she placed it with her other belongings. When she got back, she noticed the strange look that Isaac was giving her. "What?"

"Why did you take it off? I'm not gonna get mad at you or anything if you keep it on." She shook her head. "I had kept it on because I wasn't sure when I could feel safe. Now…" Her hand began rubbing the indentation of the symbols in her skin, but she had a small smile on her face. "I'm with you and I know that this may sound a bit stupid, but I feel safe with you even now after everything happened." Isaac rubbed the back of his head and chuckled. "Well I'm glad I could help." The animosity was gone from the air and the two shared a laugh, trying to enjoy whatever time they had left before their safety was in question.

A/N: First off, I want to thank McQueen for not only giving me the idea for the story, but for looking it over and making sure everything was alright. I hope this was to your liking. For anybody who's curious about seeing the bracelet that Ellie has, there is a dead space wiki site that you can check out. If you look under Ellie's profile, they've got a great close of it. Hope you guys enjoy and plz review^^


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